Saturday, April 28, 2012

In this post, I will identify certain unique hardware that games used and can be difficult to replicate without it. Except in one instance, no game will refuse to run because you do not have a particular system or card or device, but features may be lost. I will identify the hardware in bold, then identify the particular feature or limitation unique to that card and list the games that support or require that particular feature. Finally, I will explain what the issue is and possible work-arounds. Fan patches and hacks are not included.

IBM Personal Computer Line
Feature - BASIC in ROM

Bumble Games
Bumble Plot
Juggles' Butterfly

Explanation : IBM's computers contained Cassette BASIC in ROM. However, this version of BASIC was limited to communicating with cassettes, so IBM put BASIC.COM and BASICA.COM on its DOS disks so BASIC could interface with floppy drives. These programs were relatively small because they utilized the underlying BASIC in ROM code. As clone manufacturers entered the picture, Microsoft combined the Cassette BASIC and BASICA.COM into GW-BASIC.EXE for the clone systems, which did not have BASIC in ROM.

Games requiring BASIC always came in a DOS-readable format and required BASIC, BASICA or GW-BASIC to function. The above games were released by IBM, and would contain BASIC or BASICA on the game disk. Other companies may have required you to copy over the appropriate interpreter to avoid having to pay license fees to IBM or Microsoft.

With the above games, released by IBM, their disk labels clearly state or should state "Copy Protected". When IBM released software licensed from 3rd party developers, the developers always put copy protection on the disks. With its internally developed software, it usually was not picky. The above games were created by The Learning Co. The disks could boot without user intervention since they contained the basic DOS files and AUTOEXEC.BAT to start the programs. Normally, if you were trying to run the program on a non-IBM PC, you would replace BASIC and BASICA with GW-BASIC. On these programs, due to the copy protection, it may not work.

Explanation : These games have support for the GUS's hardware mixing capabilities. Essentially they boast the best support for the GUS. By using the GUS's hardware, instead of software mixing, typically these games will have better audio performance and higher audio quality. Unfortunately, hardware mixing was removed after DOOM v1.2 because there was no room left on the card after the RAM samples for the music had been uploaded and DMA transfers without using the RAM were buggy and inflexible.

NEC V20/V30 Incompatibility
Feature - Game works with an 8088 or 8086 CPU but not with an NEC V20 or V30

Lode Runner
Championship Lode Runner
Jumpman (possibly)

Explanation : The IBM PC, (many) PCjr., XT, Tandy 1000, 1000EX, SX and HX all have a socketed 8088 CPU. A popular, reasonably priced upgrade for these systems was to replace the 8088 CPU for the NEC V20, which is an optimized version of the CPU. For systems like the IBM PS/2 Model 25 and 30 and the Tandy 1000SL and SL/2, the socketed 8086 could be replaced with an NEC V30. Due to optimizations in the instruction execution, the addition of a hardware multiplier, the resulting speed improvement could be 15% on average over the equivalent Intel CPU. However, the occasional game will not work with a V20 or V30. The only confirmed game is Lode Runner, but the disk image and DOS conversion available on the Internet work fine with a V20.

Alternative : Run game with 8088 or 8086 CPU, use Retrograde Station booter or DOS conversion.

Explanation : Quite a few games support Creative C/MS or Game Blaster sound. The sound chips are two Phillips SAA-1099s and they can be found on the Creative Music System Card or the relabeled card, the Creative Game Blaster Card. They can also be found on the Creative Sound Blaster 1.0 and can be inserted into sockets on the Sound Blaster 1.5 or 2.0 and a few licensed clones. However, the CMS and Game Blaster cards have a 40-pin DIP chip labeled CT-1302A. This chip allows the card to be autodetected by programs, since the chips themselves cannot be detected. It also acts as a transceiver for the CMS chips. The above games have been proven to fail on Sound Blaster cards, since those cards have a Creative Digital Signal Processor where the CT-1302 is mapped on the C/MS and Game Blaster cards. The Sound Blaster DSP works very differently than the CT-1302. Operation Wolf will also complain that it cannot find the Game Blaster like the other Taito games, but will still play the music. Ditto for Wolfpack from Broderbund.

Prince of Persia, v1.0, may be an honorary member in this list. While it supports the Game Blaster, it also supports Adlib and will use that chip if it detects it in the system, regardless of what else may be inside it. So if you have a Sound Blaster 1.0-2.0, you will need to physically remove the YM3812 chip or hack the game to disable the Adlib detection to get Game Blaster music. Star Control acts like Prince of Persia in that it will force Adlib sound if it detects an Adlib or Sound Blaster in the system, even if you have Game Blaster chips and force it by a command line argument.

Explanation : The Tandy 1000 series, specifically the SL/TL/RL models, have DAC functionality in addition to the TI SN 76496 PSG hardware. In other words, they can play back digitized sound samples and voice. The above games are the only known games to support digitized sound playback on a Tandy but not with a Sound Blaster card. Some games have other options as listed. Unfortunately, when the DAC is playing on real hardware, the built in joystick ports cannot be used.

Space Quest III originally shipped with digital sound support only for the Tandy DAC, but you can use the Sound Blaster driver from KQ1SCI and hear the digital sound effects.

Note that there were three revisions of the DAC. The "Jacksboro" revision came first, and is found in the TL and SL. Then came the "Bonanza" revision, found in the TL/2, SL/2, RL, and 2500XL. Finally there is the "Hensdale" revision, found in the TL/3, RLX, RSX, other computers in the 2500XL series and in the Sensation! (noticeably over-filtered in the latter). The Hensdale chips are somewhat incompatible with the above games, producing lockups on Outrun, incorrect sound on Wings of Fury and pops in other games designed for the older chips.

Alternatives : DOSBox SVN has full support for Tandy DAC. Unlike the real hardware, some games may allow joystick control when digital sounds are played.

Explanation : Most games that supported the Sound Blaster AWE32 or 64 in DOS merely used the 1MB of samples contained in ROM on the card. These games upload a custom sample bank for more customized sound than what would be contained in the ROM samples. There are also several Windows games that include Soundfont patches. They can also use any PCI Creative sound card, but the DOS games will only recognize an AWE32 or AWE64.

The TL, TL/2, TL/3, SL, SL/2, RL & RL-HD support all the usual CGA and Tandy video modes but add MDA/Hercules support and an extra 640x200x16 Mode. This mode was not supported in the BIOS and the programmer had to write to the registers to set it correctly. The above games are the only ones known to support the 640x200x16 resolution, and both support EGA and VGA too. Deskmate 3 also uses the mode. Sargon V uses some different colors in Tandy compared with EGA.

Explanation : The Roland MPU-401 MIDI Interface supports two modes, normal (unofficially known as "intelligent") and UART (unofficially known as "dumb"). In normal mode, the interface supports a wide range of commands. In UART mode, it only sends and receives data, not commands. Early games that supported the MT-32 assumed that the user had a Roland MPU-401 interface and wrote their drivers to utilize the normal mode commands. Later games dispensed with the commands and the need for normal mode.

Alternatives : DOSBox has full MPU-401 emulation. Ensoniq Soundscape boards can trick many games into working because they can send an ACK (acknolwedge) to the game after every normal mode command. Since games only output MIDI, they don't care how the interface handles the command. The Soundscape does not actually carry out the command. This does not work for every game, as Legend Enterainment games that support the MT-32 will require true hardware or DOSBox. The MediaTrix Audiotrix Pro also supports an ACK for MPU-401 commands. There are fan-made patches for most of the Sierra games that will allow them to use the Sound Blaster MIDI interface at 2x0h, search for mt32sb.zip I have marked with an asterisk the games which the patch supports. Finally, if you have a 386 or better processor, there is a program called SoftMPU which emulates an MPU-401 in DOS. It requires EMM386.EXE or another Expanded Memory Manager to be loaded, so it will not work on a 286 or lower machine.

Explanation : The Pro Audio Spectrum was the first card to offer stereo FM music. It has two OPL2 chips on board, one for the left channel, one for the right channel. Creative later used the dual OPL2 setup in its first Sound Blaster Pro. The early Sierra 256-color titles listed above will support stereo FM music using the Pro Audio Spectrum Driver only. The other games support both cards in stereo. Later Pro Audio Spectrums, including the Plus and 16s, will not work either as they use one OPL3 chip. The Pro Audio Spectrum is compatible with Adlib, but in mono only.

Alternative : Use SB Pro 1.0 in games supporting it. None of the Sierra games listed above support stereo on the SB Pro 1.0. There may be fan-made patches floating about the Internet for the Sierra titles, but require an OPL3 card like the SB Pro 2.0 or later.

Explanation : Uses the famous SID chip found in the Commodore 64 for music. The SID chip is directly addressable on the ISA bus on this card, and requires a large number of I/O addresses (31) for its registers. The chip is a 6581, not a 6582 or 8580. The card is extremely rare. Airball uses this card or C/MS Game Blaster for sound effects, but the sound effects sound better on this card.

Description : These games support a special graphics mode found on the InColor card when connected to an EGA monitor.

Alternative : All games also support high resolution EGA graphics, 640x350x16/64. It is not impossible that a non-Hercules card may emulate the functionality. Also, the graphics may look the same, only with borders on the left and right sides of the frame. Karateka only supports the Hercules Color Graphics Card, a CGA clone designed to co-exist with a Hercules (Monochrome) Graphics Card.

Covox Sound Master

Feature - AY8910 or 8930 Sound

Conan - The Cimmerian
Galleons of Glory
Megatraveller 2
Prince of Persia (v1.0 only)
Punisher, The
Sim Earth
Spirit of Excalibur
Twilight 2000
Ultima VI
Vengeance of Excalibur
Where in Time if Carmen Sandiego (AY8930 music)
Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego (320x200 VGA Version)

Description : These games support music and/or sound effects using the AY8930 PSG found on the original Covox Sound Master. Mostly games only supported the basic AY8910 features, which were also found in the Atari ST computers, many arcade games, the Intellivision and the Mockingboard line of sound cards for the Apple II. The card is incredibly rare. Covox marketed a line of sound adapters, including the Speech Thing, the Voice Master, the Sound Master, the Sound Master + and the Sound Master II. The + and II are NOT compatible with the original Sound Master, as they are essentially Sound Blaster clones.

Alternative : None

Feature - Near Exclusive Digital Sound Support

MegaTraveller 1
Space 1899
SimCity
The Punisher
Transylvania III

Description : These games support one of the digitial sound reproduction methods of the original Covox Sound Master or the Adlib-compatible Covox Sound Master II and do not support Sound Blaster digitized sound playback.

Note that Covox Lemmings only supports Adlib, Countdown and A-Train does not actually function with a Sound Master (despite what it says on the A-Train box) and Wolfenstein 3D specifically requires a Disney Sound Source and will not work with a Covox Speech Thing/Voice Master/Sound Master of any kind.

Explanation : The above games and demo will support the 4-op FM synthesis, but only using the rare IBM Music Feature Card, IMFC. No official patches are known to exist to let these games work with an Yamaha FB-01 + Roland MPU-401 combination. In many cases, later versions of these games will support a Yamaha FB-01.

Alternative : None

Yamaha FB-01

Feature - YM2164 OPP 4-op FM Sound

Codename: Iceman

Colonel's Bequest, The

Conquests of Camelot (patch only)

Hero's Quest/Quest for Glory

Hoyle's Official Book of Games Volume I

Jones in the Fast Lane

King's Quest I SCI

King's Quest IV (later versions)

King's Quest V

Leisure Suit Larry 2 (later versions)

Leisure Suit Larry 3

Mixed Up Mother Goose (16-color SCI version, patch only)

Police Quest II

Quest for Glory 2

Silpheed

Sorcerian

Space Quest III

Explanation : The above games will support the 4-op FM music with the above midi module or the IBM Music Feature Card. A Roland MPU-401 Midi Interface is required.

Alternative : There is a special version of DOSBox that will support output to the FB-01, the ordinary versions do not due to the MIDI buffer being too small for the custom sysex sounds sent to the FB-01 by the driver. Also, you should download the patch here to avoid errors caused by Sierra's driver with DOSBox's MPU-401 emulation : http://www.vogons.org/download/file.php?id=14968 SoftMPU as of version 1.9 will also support the Yamaha FB-01.

If you have an IBM Music Feature and Roland MPU-401 interface but the game that is buggy with the IMF driver, try the FB01 driver, connecting the midi out of the MPU-401 to the midi in of the Music Feature's breakout box.

Explanation : Certain games has specific support for these midi keyboards and module. The MT-540 and the CT-460 function almost identically from a programmer perspective, even though the latter offers access to more sounds through the keyboard controls. The one difference is that the CT-460 and CSM-1 assign different tones to program change numbers compared to the MT-540, and the Apogee games identify the CT-460 in their setup programs. This would mean that the wrong sounds may be played with a MT-540. The CSM-1 is far less common than either keyboard. A Roland MPU-401 interface must be used. DOSBox should work well with these devices attached to a hardware midi interface.

Alternative : None

Adlib Gold

Feature - Optional Surroundsound Daughtercard Support

Dune

Explanation : Dune supports the Surroundsound module for the Adlib Gold for reverb, enhancing one of the best FM soundtracks ever made for a PC game.

Alternative : None

Feature - YMF-262 OPL3

Dune

Explanation : Dune supports OPL3 features on the Adlib Gold, but only OPL2 features on a Sound Blaster or Sound Blaster Pro.

Alternative : Use MediaTrix Audiotrix Pro sound card or Tandy Sensation! system, which are compatible with the Adlib Gold.

Paradise & Video 7 SVGA

Feature : 800x600x16 Graphics Mode

Wonderland

Explanation : The above early SVGA chipsets support a non-standard 800x600x16 mode. Wonderland supports it, but only on graphics cards with the PVGA1A or Video 7 VEGA chipsets. You probably would need a card with 512K RAM on it, even though the mode only requires a 240KB frame buffer.

Alternative : Use DOSBox with the SVGA_Paradise option.

IBM 8514/A Graphics Card

Feature - 1024x768x256 @ 43.5Hz

Mah Jongg -8514- (beta)

Explanation : The IBM 8514/A was an Microchannel (MCA) card that acted as a supplement to the built-in VGA graphics of the early PS/2 systems. It was a graphics accelerator which added 1024x768x256 and 640x480x256 modes. The former mode was interlaced at 43.5Hz, the latter ran at 60Hz. Some other cards like the ATi Mach 8 & 32 and the TSENG ET4000 can emulate it. It originally required a special monitor, the IBM 8514. The above game is the only game known to utilize the adapter, and it was only a beta.

Alternative : Use DOSBox with the SVGA_ET4000 machine type and the 8514AI emulator.

IBM PS1 Audio/Game Card

Feature - Digital Sound Support

Silpheed (version 2.3 only)

Explanation : The IBM PS/1 2011 did not come with any ISA slots, so to give some sort of audio support, IBM released the above plug in card to provide support. Early models of the PS/1 2121 also have the header for the card, but they also have ISA slots. It used a TI SN76496 clone core, provided gamport joystick and midi support and a specialized DAC. Sierra released a special and very rare version of Silpheed to support it, and it provides digital samples and voices whereas all the old versions used the PC Speaker.

Alternative : Use DOSBox SVN

Feature - SN Music

Bush Buck: Global Treasure Hunter

Explanation : Bush Buck supports TI SN 76496 based music on the IBM PS/1 Audio Card but not on a Tandy 1000. Mickey's Colors & Shapes supports 3-voice music on a Tandy 1000 but not on an IBM PS/1 Audio/Game Card. For the PS/1 card, it uses digitized music, just like with a Sound Blaster or Disney Sound Source. Users with a Tandy DAC can also hear the digitized music.

Disney Sound Source

Feature - Digital Sound Support

Arachnophobia
Dick Tracy: The Crime-Solving Adventure

Explanation : The Disney Sound Source is an LPT DAC that plugs into a DB-25 female printer port (except apparently on Tandy 1000 RL & TL/3 and 2500XL). It is similar to the Covox Speech Thing in that it outputs 8-bit digital sound, but the programming is slightly more involved. The above games are the only games known to exclusively support it for digitized sound playback and have no Sound Blaster support.

Alternative : Use DOSBox

MCGA

Feature - 320x200x"16"

Thexder

Explanation : The MultiColor Graphics Adapter, found in the 8086-based IBM PS/2 Models 25 & 30 only, supports a 320x200x256 color mode. Some games will use it even though they do not support more than 16 colors on the screen at a time. Instead, they will use the 256 color mode to allow access to the 18-bit RGB palette of the MCGA and VGA. Thexder is the only game known to do this by autodetecting the MCGA machines. If you use a VGA card, the game will give you a 640x200x16 mode with only the default CGA/EGA palette available.

Alternative : You can trick Thexder to run in the MCGA mode if you have a VGA card by renaming MAINPS to MAINEG and MAINEG to something else.

Explanation : The IBM PC Model 5150 and the IBM PCjr. support a cassette for saving and loading BASIC programs. It can also output sound from the PC Speaker. Music Construction Set supported it to output tweaked PC speaker music to a real speaker. Unfortunately the internal speaker may not be shut off. The PCjr. has an official cable, but the PC must use a Tandy TRS-80 cassette cable. The music does not sound any different than what is produced internally, but it does allow for volume control and easier recording.

Explanation : The IBM PCjr. came with two cartridge slots on the front of the unit for games and smaller programs. There was a version of Lotus 1-2-3 that came on two cartridges, presumably for instant loading. The two cartridge slots accept up to 64K cartridges each and are mapped to the D000 and E000 segments, respectively. The especially rare IBM PC JX also has compatible cartridge slots, but nothing else has compatible slots.

Alternative : DOSBox with cartridge images

Feature - Reliance on PCjr. limitations

King's Quest
Touchdown Football

Explanation : The PCjr. version of King's Quest will not work on a PC or PCjr. compatible like the Tandy 1000s, except for a Tandy 1000/A/HD with 128KB of RAM. King's Quest for the Jr. uses a graphics window from 96-128K, and the Jr. cannot change the location of the window. The Tandy 1000 can and does if more than 128KB of RAM is inside the system. Later Tandy 1000s come with at least 256KB RAM, so the graphics will not display. Sierra released a version for IBM PCs and a version specifically for Tandy 1000s. Touchdown Football is reported to have too fast digitized sound playback with a Tandy 1000. Even though the PCjr. and the 1000 share video RAM with main RAM, the 1000 does not suffer from the performance deficiencies.

I originally included M.U.L.E is in this list because the release for the PC was extremely rare and it was assumed that it was a port IBM commissioned specifically for the PCJr. Now it has been revealed to the world to be a strictly PC port that supports only standard CGA and PC speaker sound that happens to run on the PCjr. See here for further details : http://www.worldofmule.net/tiki-index.php?page=IBM+PC

Alternative : Tandy 1000 w/128KB RAM or DOSBox

Feature - Speech Adapter Support

Bouncy Bee Learns Letters

Explanation : Among the few sidecars IBM released was a speech adapter, and Bouncy Bee, also released by IBM supports it. IBM later released similar speech adapters for the PC Convertible and the PS/2. Bouncy Bee is not PCjr. specific, so it is quite probable that the game may work with the other IBM adapters. All adapters are rare.

Alternative : The IBM Digispeech DS201A and 301, which connect via serial and parallel port, respectively, is adverised as being compatible with the IBM Speech Adapters will work with Bouncy Bee Learns Letters, but its driver must be loaded first.

Tandy 1000
Feature - Reliance on Tandy 1000 Features

King's Quest
Touchdown Football
Demon Attack

Explanation : The Tandy 1000 version of King's Quest will not work on a PC, but it should work just fine on a PCjr. Tandy marketed a version of Touchdown Football that is fixed for its system, but this version is very rare. Ditto for Demon Attack, now on floppy and with a title screen. These games will only work in Tandy 1000 machines, and may have difficulties with the TL/SL/RL machines.

Note that I have not included every game that takes advantage of PCjr./Tandy 1000 graphics and/or sound. The list would be enormous and the machines themselves are not so rare. I have been putting together a list of games that support Tandy graphics but not EGA or better and Tandy sound but not Adlib, Game Blaster, Roland MT-32 or other sound device beyond the PC Speaker. Maybe I will finish it and post it on this blog.

Something that had been forgotten by most people is that a MDA or Hercules card can comfortably exist alongside a CGA card or Tandy Graphics Adapter found in the *X machines. It may or may not work on the *L machines as they have built-in MDA/Tandy emulation. It should also work with most EGA cards and many VGA cards. The idea is that you have your color monitor attach to a color graphics adapter and that will be your "primary" display. The monochrome adapter will of course be connected to a monochrome display and act as the "secondary" display. With a CGA card or Tandy, the MDA card can be set to display text modes and the DOS prompt and the color adapter to display games and graphics. With more advanced cards, typically the monochrome monitor would take on the secondary role. CAD, programming tools, spreadsheets would often take advantage of the multiple monitor setup, but games could use it too.

Mah Jongg VGA will display information about remaining tiles, but Mechwarrior 2 and ROTT show debugging information, which was unintentional. There is a special build of DOSBox which uses the status window to display what the monochrome monitor would have displayed.

Alternative : Special DOSBox build

Amstrad PC
Feature - 640x200x16 Graphics

Dragonfly (Title Screen Only)
Flags
Feud
Maupiti Island

The Amstrad PC1512 (aka Sinclair PC500) is an 8086 XT clone with a unique video adapter. It is a UK machine and all games that support it come from European developers. The PC1640 (aka PC6400) has EGA built-in and also has the 1512 graphics adapter but it is disabled. The built-in video is based on CGA but supports an additional 640x200x16 mode. The built in video is not quite 100% compatible with CGA, and like the original Tandy 1000/A/HD it cannot be disabled.

I have never seen a screenshot of a game supporting this adapter. The adapter has no official support for the much more common 320x200x16 EGA/PCjr./Tandy resolution. However, the equivalent graphics could be shown on the Amstrad by using double-wide pixels in the 640x200x16 mode. There would be a performance hit since the memory buffer is twice as large, but the alternative is stock CGA. All the games above have been actually confirmed to use the 640x200x16 graphics mode, the rest may advertise support for the Amstrad PC, but that only means that the game will work with the system. These games will only support standard CGA, EGA or VGA graphic adapters.

Alternative : DOSBox SVN has an Amstrad machine type.

Feature - Digital Joystick Support

Die Hard 2: Die Harder
Feud
Iznogoud
Metal Mutant
Wizball

The Amstrad PC1512 and 1640 can support the traditional PC analog joysticks using an external ISA gameport or sound card, but also had a digital joystick port on the keyboard. The port is a DE-9 and supports standard one and two button Atari style sticks. The resulting joystick positions and fire button presses are sent as unused keyboard scancodes. Since the scancodes selected are not usually used on IBM keyboards, the game had to have specific support for the Amstrad joystick interface. Amstrad also supported a custom mouse where the two mouse buttons also corresponded to unused keyboard scancodes and non-standard I/O ports for the X and Y movement.

There are probably other games that support the Amstrad digital joystick interface, but these games are almost certain to do so since they advertise specific support for the Amstrad PCs.

Taito also supported a one-button Atari joystick using a parallel port adapter for Rastan, Renegade, Sky Shark, Bubble Bobble, Puzznic, QIX. Other companies may have as well.

Alternative : Gravis Gamepad or digital controller with DOSBox.

Feature - Gun-Stick Light Gun

Solo

The Amstrad PC-1512 and 1640's joystick port was also used for a special kind of light gun called the Gun-Stick and supported in at least one game. The Gun-Stick was used more in Amstrad CPC games.

These games support the unique hardware acceleration of the NV1 GPU. The best known cards using the NV1 were the Diamond Edge 3D boards, and they were bundled with some games designed to work only for those cards. These cards also had built in sound, midi and joystick ports, the latter of which supporting Sega Saturn controllers. All except Nascar are Windows games, but they may not support standard Direct 3D. NV1 boards were no great success in the marketplace. The software mode in Virtua Cop looks better than the NV1 3D acceleration and was presumably designed for weaker systems.

Alternative : Play these games on a Sega Saturn (except NASCAR Racing)

The Rendition Verite 1000 was an early competitor of the 3dfx Voodoo Graphics 3D Accelerator Board. It may not have been quite as speedy, but it could offer better graphics effects or higher resolution. While it was Direct 3D compliant, it ran games much better that used its proprietary Speedy3D and RRedline APIs. GLQuake supports 3dfx Voodoo and (with some cajoling) other OpenGL compliant 3D accelerators, but strictly in Windows. If you want 3D accelerated Quake in DOS, you must use a Rendition Verite card and vQuake. vHexen II and vQuake II are Windows only games and the games themselves obviosuly support 3dfx.

Rebel Moon and Indycar Racing II were both bundled with Rendition cards, (Creative's 3D Blaster PCI and Sierra's Screamin' 3D, respectively), so the bundled versions only work with Rendition cards. Other than as indicated, the rest of these games will work with a 3dfx Voodoo card.

Alternative : 3dfx Voodoo cards work with most of the above

3Dfx Voodoo 1
Feature - Voodoo 1 Accelerator Only

Dreams into Reality

The above games are the only games that will not work with a Voodoo Rush or Voodoo 2 or later 3Dfx card. Several other DOS games will require either a patch or a batch file setting the Voodoo 2 to Voodoo 1 settings for the game to work.

The above games can only work with one version of the Glide2x.dll or Glide2x.ovl file, and the driver was only designed to work with a Voodoo 1. You can use a batch file to get the game working on a Voodoo 2, but it will not work for a a Rush, Banshee, 3/4/5 card.

The above games take advantage of bugs in the firmware of the MT-32 to create sounds that do not sound the same on the later Roland LA synthesis modules. Any Roland MT-32 rev. 0, which have firmware ROM versions up to 1.07, will make these games sound perfect. However, in most instances the difference in sound is confined to the occasional sound effect or musical note.

Alternative : MUNT or Yhkwong's DOSBox SVN MT-32 emulation should support bugs that rely on characteristics of the version 1.xx firmware ROMs, if you use it, but may not support bugs which rely on the hardware of the rev. 0 MT-32.

The above games fail to work properly or at all on rev. 0 MT-32s because they were programmed on a later Roland device, usually a LAPC-I. While the rev. 0 is sensitive to MIDI transmission speed, several games will give a buffer overflow regardless of system speed because the rev. 0 requires a 40ms delay between sending sysex and the later models do not. Alternative : MUNT or Yhkwong's DOSBox SVN's MT-32 will work without buffer overflows, or there in the latest vanilla SVNs there is an option to insert delays into sysex messages irrespective of the game. This will work to produce sound in many, if not all games when the midi is being output to a real MT-32 rev. 0.

Roland GS modules, which are also functionally General MIDI compatibile, support 128 capital tones (or instruments) and 128 variation tones for each capital tone. In theory, a GS module could support 16,256 variation tones but early modules only define a very small portion of the maximum (61 in a SC-55 not including the 128 MT-32 tones). Thus in the early Roland GS modules, if a midi file requested a variation tone where none was present, the module would playback the capital tone. This feature is present on all Roland MIDI modules and devices based on the Roland SC-55, including the CM-300, CM-500, JV-30 (Keyboard), SCC-1, and SC-155.All these devices, except for the SC-155 and JV-30, were originally released without GM support, although in practice all GM support did was to disable certain GS features. The Might and Magic games need to specifically Init GS to avoid an issue with modules bearing a General MIDI logo.

Roland removed this feature in modules based on the Roland SC-55mkII synthesizer, including the SCB-55, SCP-55, SC-55ST, SC-33, SC-50, JV-35 & 50 (Keyboards), and did not restore it in their SC-88 or later devices. For these devices, an attempt by a game above to access an undefined variation tone will result in no instrument playing, leading to a loss of sound and a NO INSTRUMENT error message on those devices with a LCD. The SCC-1A, which was an SCC-1 update with the 354 sounds of an SC-55mkII, does not support the capital tone fallback feature. Alternative : Windows 2000, XP, Vista and 7's default MIDI patches uses the Roland GS sound set and supports capital tone fallback. Roland GS (includes game expansions unless otherwise noted)Feature - Variation TonesBloodDuke Nukem 3DDune IIMight and Magic : Clouds of XeenMight and Magic : Darkside of XeenExplanation : See Above. If you have a GS module that disables this feature with a GM Reset (all GS devices except SC-55, CM-300, CM-500 and SCC-1s without a General MIDI logo on them), then you must send a GS reset or initialize your module in the GS mode to support this feature. Feature - Reverb or Chorus ControllerBetrayal at Krondor*Hi-Octane$The Incredible Machine 2*Prince of Persia 2Sam & Max Hit the RoadShadow Warrior (Shareware Only)Ultima VIII: PaganExplanation : Uses the reverb or chorus controllers in Roland GS devices.Feature - NRPNDuke Nukem 3DExplanation : NRPN stands for Non-Registered Parameter Number, which allows access to special, non-standard settings on a GS device. General MIDI devices only have to support Registered Parameter Numbers (RPN). NRPN is disabled with a GM Reset. If you have a GS module that disables this feature with a GM Reset (all GS devices except SC-55, CM-300, CM-500 and SCC-1s without a General MIDI logo on them), then you must send a GS reset or initialize your module in the GS mode to support this feature. Feature - Additional Percussion NotesBetrayal at KrondorDuke Nukem 3DEcoQuest 2The Even More! Incredible MachineFreddy Pharkas : Frontier PharmacistGabriel Knight : Sins of the FathersThe Incredible Machine$King's Quest VIKing's Quest VIILeisure Suit Larry 6Magic CarpetPepper's Adventures in TimePolice Quest : Open SeasonPrince of Persia 2Quarky & Quaysoo's Turbo Science$Quest for Glory IIIQuest for Glory IVRise of the Triad: Dark WarSam & Max Hit the RoadShadow Warrior (Shareware Only)Space Quest VUltima VIIIWarcraft IIExplanation : Uses sound effects found in the GS modues like Slap, Metronome Bell or Gun Shot. Non-GS devices may also support these sound effects.
Feature - Special Drum KitsAge of Empires (Windows only)BlackthorneBloodDescentDescent IIDuke Nukem 3DHocus PocusMagic CarpetPrince of Persia 2Pepper's Adventures in Time*Quarky & Quaysoo's Turbo Science*$
Quest for Glory III*Shadow Warrior (Shareware Only, Retail uses CD audio)Space Quest V*Warcraft II

Explanation : Uses the additional drum kits found in the GS modules. Non-GS devices may also support these extra drum kits.
* - Needs Patch to Enable Feature
$ - Needs Patch for GM to even work!

Feature - Early pre-General MIDI capital tone arrangement

DOOMDOOM II
Descent
Descent IIDuke Nukem 3D

Explanation : The first Roland SC-55 units had an early arrangement of what would become the canonical General MIDI and GS patch maps. These units, which can be definitively distinguished by a "GS STANDARD" label under the LCD, have Fl. Key Click at Program Change #122. Some early SC-55s with the "GS" label under the LCD also adhere to this patch map. Later SC-55s with the "GS" label, all SCC-1s, CM-300s, CM-500s and any module with official General MIDI support changed the patch map in two respects. First, Fl. Key Click was replaced with Breath Noise as the capital tone and relegated to a variation tone. Second, on Program Change #81, Sine Wave was added as a variation tone. While the second change would be generally difficult to notice for any piece of music, people have confirmed that some music just does not sound right with Breath Noise where it does with Fl. Key Click. The hypothesis is that the composer used an early SC-55 to compose his MIDI tracks.

Alternative : Manually change the instrument from the capital to the variation tone on any module that has a front control panel.
Update : The composer of the music for DOOM, DOOM II and Duke Nukem 3D (and probably more), Robert "Bobby" Prince, confirmed that he used a GM-compatible SC-55 when composing, so the Breath Noise assignment for those modules is correct. A patch exists for the Descent games to change the assignment to Fl. Key Click for later modules.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

I see little point for people who obtain hardware simply to have it, i.e. pure collectors. I do not consider most vintage hardware to have any artistic value, as if people are going to go "ooh" and "ahh" over that super-duper rare IBM computer you have in a display case. It may start a short conversation, except among the like-minded, but otherwise in my opinion it simply takes up space. In the PC world, most computers looked as at home on a factory floor as in an office. Apple had some interesting designs around the time of the Mac II and the Apple IIc, and those trapezoidal function keys of the Atari ST and 130XE are truly unique.

I have held that function should hold over form. My best example is when more advanced hardware totally eclipses less advanced hardware. For example, why use an Adlib when a Sound Blaster does everything and more? In most cases, unless you cannot find a Sound Blaster, there is none. However, there are a few situations where you could find use for one :

1. A strictly 80's PC with Adlib support, because the Sound Blaster was not available until 1990.

2. Hardware conflicts with early Sound Blaster cards. Sound Blaster cards, until the Pro, only supported digitized sound input and output using DMA1. I am sure some other 8-bit expansion cards required DMA1 to function, SCSI or NIC cards for instance. I know that the Tandy Sound DAC in the TL/SL/RL requires DMA1 and the Sound Blaster is utterly incompatible with it. They hate each other.

3. A mini PC where there is a really tight squeeze for a card. The IBM PC/XT and XT/286 only supports short cards in two slots, and some Unisys compact desktops will only support short cards. The IBM PC Portable can only support two long cards due to its design. Most Sound Blasters extend beyond the edge of a 16-bit connector.

Even so, except for these specialized uses, there is no need for a true Adlib card. The Sound Blaster is 100% compatible with Adlib software. The same cannot be said for a Game Blaster and a Sound Blaster 1.0 or an upgraded Sound Blaster 1.5 or 2.0, because the Game Blaster software and some games will fail if they detect something other than a true Game Blaster. You also have the same issues as 1-3 above.

On the video card front, EGA is generally not a 100% compatible substitute for CGA, but many non-IBM EGA cards do support Hercules graphics with a monochrome TTL monitor. EGA is virtually 100% compatible with VGA cards, there is only a few titles that tweak the card in some way that most VGA cards will fail. So unless you really want to use a 200 or 350 line digital RGB monitor, most people use VGA even for EGA games.

Since I mentioned Hercules graphics, why would anyone want to use that when they could use a color graphics card instead? Well, beyond the "see how it looked" people, Hercules graphics can be a nice addition to a system. MDA or Hercules graphics can happily co-exist with CGA or Tandy graphics. You can setup a dual monitor display, but you cannot use both at the same time. Typically, the MDA/Hercules would display everything using a text mode, and the color graphics card would be used for games and graphics programs. It actually would be better if you hated CGA snow or the very slow screen updates in 80-column text modes that programs used to avoid it. On the other hand, the long persistence phosphors of a mono TTL monitor is very different than what people are used to these days.

Unfortunately, nothing can really take the place of a Roland MPU-401 Midi Interface. There are at least 45 major DOS games that will refuse to work correctly with a UART mode only compatible interface as found on the Sound Blaster 16, the Gravis Ultrasounds, Windows Sound System and Pro Audio Spectrums and Adlib Golds. Given the midi hanging note bug that most of the Sound Blaster 16 and all the AWE32 and 32s express to some degree, having another card handle the midi interface chores is a good idea.

The Gravis Ultrasound.does not natively support the FM synthesis of the Adlib OPL2 or OPL3 and other sound cards also support digitized sound effects, so why bother using it? If you are really into the DOS demo scene, that is one reason. I do not really care about demos in general, I play games. I have not encountered any game that exclusively supports the Ultrasound without supporting Sound Blaster. The main issues are performance and sound quality.

Take Epic Pinball, which has great music. This is one of those games that is a killer app for the card. It supports the Ultrasound natively, none of this MEGA-EM or S-BOS emulation nonsense. It supports 16-bit digital playback through the Ultrasound on a 386. To get close to the same level of quality on a Sound Blaster 16, you need a Pentium for smooth gameplay. Pinball Dreams, Fantasies and Illusions, Star Control II, there are other great games for the Ultrasound. Even DOOM and DOOM II can use it for multiple audio streams.

Speaking of the Sound Blaster, should you choose the Pro or the 16/AWE32/AWE64? If you have a 386 system, choose the Pro, since most games that run well on that tend to be slightly older. If you have a Pentium, choose the 16-bit card, since that will provide the better sound quality for later games. If you have a 486, you may wish to consider using both to get good compatibility at both ends of the spectrum.

A Sound Blaster Pro 1.0 is fully backwards compatible with the Sound Blaster 1.0 or 1.5. The Sound Blaster 2.0 actually came out after the Pro 1.0, but is in between the two products in terms of functionality. Actually, the Pro cannot support Game Blaster chips, so in a way it is not quite compatible with a 1.0. This is unimportant for gaming purposes, since you can always put a Game Blaster card inside a system as well (if you can find one). There will be I/O issues, however, at the cards' default 220 address. Some games simply couldn't understand that some people may have to use one of these cards at a setting other than the default.

Two FM devices in a system is a recipe for trouble. It is not a big concern if a game is merely writing to the chips, since you can always find a way to mute the unwanted output. It becomes a concern if a game is trying to read the chips, since the values read may not be the same. Usually, the status ports get read at the Adlib port 388H. While only the status register can be read on an OPL2 or OPL3 chip, games use it to detect and calibrate their delays to write to an OPL2 chip.

PnP capable Sound Blaster cards have the ability to turn off their Adlib ports. This does not entirely disable the FM of the Sound Blaster, since it can still be read at 2x0 & 2x2 (Pro or better) or 2x8. However, this will avoid conflicts with programs that read (and write) to Adlib ports. Moreover, games supporting the Sound Blaster 16 or better typically will allow alternate I/O, IRQ and DMA settings either through their setup programs or through the BLASTER variable.

The Gravis Ultrasound ACE is the only card in the Ultrasound lineup which can do the same thing, and it does it by a jumper. My card is a 1.0 model, which unfortunately had a reversed stereo jack. This is fixed in the 1.1 card, or through reversing cables.

Since this is a series of random observations, let me return to the Tandy. In the hierarchy of sound autodetection, it goes PC Speaker, Tandy/PCjr. Sound, Adlib. Items like the Game Blaster tend to hover around the Tandy category, and Roland MT-32 always gets manually selected. If you have a Tandy 1000, I hope you are not nostalgic for PC Speaker sound because many games will force Tandy sound. But Tandy graphics sometimes requires use of Tandy sound, even if there is an Adlib in the system.

In a Tandy 1000 *X or later, you can put an EGA card in the machine and games using the EGA mode. Except for those games that use 350-line EGA graphics, the games look identical. Many earlier games, however, will insist on using Tandy graphics. Fortunately there is a program which allows you to switch between a graphics card and the built-in Tandy graphics. Do can also do the same for VGA so long as you can find a card that works in an 8-bit slot and fits inside the Tandy. Later games like Commander Keen require EGA due to their smooth scrolling effects, so they will only work on a Tandy 1000 RLX or one with an upgrade card.